Even though Microsoft's new Surface has a lower resolution screen than the Retina display on the new iPad, one Microsoft engineer has argued that the Surface offers superior picture quality because of "ClearType" display technology.

Steve Bathiche said Microsoft's ClearType maximizes the "perceived resolution" of the 1,366-by-768-pixel display found on the new Surface. His comments came in a question-and-answer session conducted on the website Reddit this week, highlighted on Wednesday by CNet.

"The amount of light in a room and the reflections of the screen have a huge effect on the contrast of the display," Bathiche said. "In fact, a small amount of reflection can greatly reduce contrast and thus the perceived resolution of the display.

"With ClearType Display technology, we took a 3 pronged approach to maximize that perceived resolution and optimize for battery life, weight, and thickness."

The Microsoft engineer then explained that the Surface display reflects between 5.5 percent and 6.2 percent of light, while the new iPad reflects a larger amount of light ? 9.9 percent.

"Doing a side by side with the new iPad in a consistently lit room, we have had many people see more detail on Surface RT than on the Ipad (sic) with more resolution," he wrote.

But author Lance Whitney also noted that Bathiche seemed to "struggle" for an answer when one Reddit user asked why Microsoft decided to offer a higher resolution display with the forthcoming Intel-based Windows Pro Surface. Bathiche said the extra screen real estate with the Surface Pro might aid in office presentations.

Since it was released in March, the Retina display on the new iPad has been touted as a major improvement from its predecessor and one of the highest quality screens available on a mobile device. The 2,048-by-1,536-pixel screen packs 3.1 million pixels into a 9.7-inch space.

In addition to offering an increased resolution, display expert Raymond Soneira with DisplayMate said the iPad Retina display offers state-of-the-art sharpness and color saturation. He declared in March that the third-generation iPad has the "best display ever on a mobile device."

Why can't they let media to hands-on the surface before start selling to public.

I'm willing to bet there are key members of the media / tech blogs that are doing hand-on testing as we speak and reviews will be out by middle of next week. I for one think the Surface looks like a very compelling device.

Has any tech writer/reviewer gotten their hands on this thing outside of a Microsoft controlled environment?

I'm seeing all these stories about the $499 32GB model being sold out but that's meaningless when we don't know how many MS have available for sale. It's a new product for them so they have no sales history to go off of in determining now many to have available at launch. I'll bet the people ordering this don't know that the 32GB is more like 20GB because Windows RT and Office take up ~12GB. All these stories about Surface providing twice the storage for the same price as the iPad are bunk.

I'm willing to bet there are key members of the media / tech blogs that are doing hand-on testing as we speak and reviews will be out by middle of next week. I for one think the Surface looks like a very compelling device.

Yeah guided tours by MS employees to I'll bet. I'm waiting for someone to get their hands on it outside of Microsoft's controlled environment.

I'm willing to bet there are key members of the media / tech blogs that are doing hand-on testing as we speak and reviews will be out by middle of next week. I for one think the Surface looks like a very compelling device.

Yeah, hopefully it won't be just for skateboard or place where I can sit on.

I must admit Microsoft's marketing of the Surface is excellent. Despite the fact that it's an over-priced PoS, you would never know it from the ads and marketing materials which actually make it look like a desirable "next-gen" kind of product. I think a lot of folks will be buying these.

Of course they will be sorely disappointed with the reality of the device, but that comes after the purchase.

Wow the way of anal-yst is pushing Microsoft stuff never cease to amaze me.

First of all, since when Microsoft become a typography references? The current Windows types technology is still base on Pre-OSX truetype era, still no postscript precise rendering. Beside Cleartype doesn't apply to anything else than typo.

True is, Microsoft still have a long way to go for supporting Hi-dpi screen with heterogeneous resolution UI elements, something Apple has work on many years before introducing the MacBook Retina Display.

I hope DisplayMate with to an extensive review of this device's screen like they done before with the iPad and iPhone.

Really, their arguing that sub-pixel rendering of fonts is better than a high-DPI screen? Talk about drinking the kool-aid.

Is that what they are saying? Cleartype subpixel anti-aliasing is clearly not a function of the display (except in the sense that it needs a display with subpixels), so, to me, when they list "ClearType HD display" in the specs, they are misappropriating their own marketing terms for something only tangentially related which in this case seems to be whatever they used for the decreased reflections (perhaps in-cell touch?).

Ideally, of course, we would have both subpixel-AA and the high-DPI screen (a combination currently only available on the rMBP, IIRC).

Has any tech writer/reviewer gotten their hands on this thing outside of a Microsoft controlled environment?
I'm seeing all these stories about the $499 32GB model being sold out but that's meaningless when we don't know how many MS have available for sale. It's a new product for them so they have no sales history to go off of in determining now many to have available at launch. I'll bet the people ordering this don't know that the 32GB is more like 20GB because Windows RT and Office take up ~12GB. All these stories about Surface providing twice the storage for the same price as the iPad are bunk.

This is nothing more than people marketing what they have. It is no different than Steve's comments about smaller tablets. Neither this MS guy nor Steve seriously believed what they where saying, it just reflects the reality that you can only sell what you have.

Because, clearly, iPad has 32GB left for your own stuff after you've installed iWork and counting the iOS...

That's such a dishonest argument. You ought to say that ipad takes ~9GB OS+iWork where the (more complete) Office, Windows and the .Net environment take 14GB, saving ineffect space that is "stolen" on iOS by code that's uneeded on Windows due to ... .Net environment.

Understand me well: I won't get Surface, iPad is clearly superior. I'm just taking that argument you raised as not good enough.

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

MS is in trouble if their engineers don't understand the difference between a display and a font smoothing algorithm.

They never said that a display IS a font smoothing algorithm, but that the users couldn't make the difference between their substandard screen with the algorithm running, and a better screen. If that's true... we'll see.

I bet on user intelligence, on this.

Social Capitalist, dreamer and wise enough to know I'm never going to grow up anyway... so not trying anymore.

Because, clearly, iPad has 32GB left for your own stuff after you've installed iWork and counting the iOS...
That's such a dishonest argument. You ought to say that ipad takes ~9GB OS+iWork where the (more complete) Office, Windows and the .Net environment take 14GB, saving ineffect space that is "stolen" on iOS by code that's uneeded on Windows due to ... .Net environment.
Understand me well: I won't get Surface, iPad is clearly superior. I'm just taking that argument you raised as not good enough.

Since when has iWork been pre-installed on iPads? I don't think I can purchase Surface without Office.

So... in other words, Microsoft admits that their display is lame and that they are still relying on the philosophy that "users are stupid" (something I was taught taking classes for MCSE cert.).
Cleartype meaning a certain boldness and shadow to the font. wow. Crazy.
I'd prefer a display that doesn't need nasty looking fonts, thank you.
And then talking about reflections? As if their display is better because of reflections?
Seriously?
The sad thing is when you have a Scarface and put it next to the iPad, the Retina Display, the MS product looks like donkey doo.
But then, MS will start extolling the virtues of donkey doo...

"Scarface"? Good one. HAHAHA.

M$ always manages to do something cheap. It's their nature. M$ has never been a mfg that I would equate high quality. They seem like the kind of company that will go cheap so they can make money. I'm wondering how long they can keep their Scareface product on the market before they cave. At the rate the rest of the PC industry is going, Microsoft might have to start designing desktops and laptop computers with their name on it instead of having to rely on Dell, HP, and others. I wonder how much fall out there will be in the PC industry. IBM started the trend when they sold off to Lenovo. Abandon ship!!!!

This seems like preemptive damage control to me. Most companies don't release stats like this over a device that hasn't been released unless there's a reason to. If the screen looks that good it would come out in the reviews. As it sits now this feels like an attempt to get ahead of negative publicity surrounding the display.